#deja_vu — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #deja_vu, aggregated by home.social.
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#déjà_vu #anthrax #history #neoNazis #CBW #biowar #LarryWayneHarris
"FBI foils anthrax plot in U.S. White supremacist, lab owner arrested by FBI in Nevada; Vials, car taken for testing; Bacillus to be used as terror weapon, say federal charges
PUBLISHED: February 20, 1998 at 12:00 AM EST | UPDATED: September 29, 2021 at 12:01 AM EDT
In a lightning operation involving scores of agents, the FBI arrested two men outside Las Vegas and charged them with obtaining deadly anthrax microbes for use as a terrorist weapon, authorities said yesterday.
One suspect, Larry Wayne Harris, 46, of Lancaster, Ohio, is a microbiologist and white supremacist who is on probation from a 1995 case in which he fraudulently obtained bubonic plague bacteria. He boasted last summer of plans to spread deadly biological toxins in the New York City subway, according to an FBI document.
The other suspect, William Job Leavitt Jr., 47, of Logandale, Nev., owns microbiology labs in Nevada and Germany and is listed in corporate documents as vice president of a Silver Spring health foundation.
Acting on a tip received Wednesday, FBI agents less than 12 hours later swooped down on the two men outside a lab in Henderson, 20 miles southeast of Las Vegas, and seized 40 Petrie dishes and a white cooler. They also seized a beige Mercedes-Benz automobile, sealed it with plastic and took it to a nearby Air Force base for examination.
All the seized items were being tested by FBI and military experts for the bacteria that causes anthrax, a common disease of livestock in developing countries, which has become one of the deadliest weapons in the world’s biological arsenals."
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People being glad when a certain man is dead is a recurring theme in our common history. People even write songs about it.
duck://player/WJYCh8Sqzsw
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"Reading the story in light of the overall arc of Jewish history, we immediately see that as a people, we have spent much more time in the state that our tradition calls galut ('exile') than one of sovereignty within the Land.
Galut is a complex concept, but in brief: traditional Jewish thought has held that our exile from the Land was a direct result of failing to live in a proper way, and therefore it could only be reversed by God during the final redemption (when 'the wolf will live with the lamb,' the dead will be resurrected, and so forth).
Crucially, mystical teachers from the Holy Ari to the Lubavitcher Rebbe have held that we were not sent into exile as a punishment, but rather because a time had arrived in which our holy work could no longer be done while dwelling all together in the Promised Land.
That is, galut is the state the Jewish people are supposed to exist in. We are now meant to live all around the world, in interrelationship with many other peoples.It used to be called Canaan. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg explains why that is no longer true. Even though her explanation is rooted in religion, it worth reading.
Coming out of slavery and into freedom, our ancestors had a dilemma: How will we live in the world? How will we strive for safety? What kind of people do we want to be?
They tried the path of conquest; genocide; sovereignty; military might. Maybe that path was incompatible with right living—with all those good relationships between people, Land, and Creator.
Maybe the fact that it ended badly is the entire point.
So our Creator removed us from that state and handed us a different task: galut. Where the rules we should live by are not those of domination and control, but of interrelation and coexistence.
Maybe those ancestors, so recently enslaved, didn’t know any better way to do things.
May we ourselves merit to find one, speedily and in our days."
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"Reading the story in light of the overall arc of Jewish history, we immediately see that as a people, we have spent much more time in the state that our tradition calls galut ('exile') than one of sovereignty within the Land.
Galut is a complex concept, but in brief: traditional Jewish thought has held that our exile from the Land was a direct result of failing to live in a proper way, and therefore it could only be reversed by God during the final redemption (when 'the wolf will live with the lamb,' the dead will be resurrected, and so forth).
Crucially, mystical teachers from the Holy Ari to the Lubavitcher Rebbe have held that we were not sent into exile as a punishment, but rather because a time had arrived in which our holy work could no longer be done while dwelling all together in the Promised Land.
That is, galut is the state the Jewish people are supposed to exist in. We are now meant to live all around the world, in interrelationship with many other peoples.It used to be called Canaan. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg explains why that is no longer true. Even though her explanation is rooted in religion, it worth reading.
Coming out of slavery and into freedom, our ancestors had a dilemma: How will we live in the world? How will we strive for safety? What kind of people do we want to be?
They tried the path of conquest; genocide; sovereignty; military might. Maybe that path was incompatible with right living—with all those good relationships between people, Land, and Creator.
Maybe the fact that it ended badly is the entire point.
So our Creator removed us from that state and handed us a different task: galut. Where the rules we should live by are not those of domination and control, but of interrelation and coexistence.
Maybe those ancestors, so recently enslaved, didn’t know any better way to do things.
May we ourselves merit to find one, speedily and in our days."
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"Reading the story in light of the overall arc of Jewish history, we immediately see that as a people, we have spent much more time in the state that our tradition calls galut ('exile') than one of sovereignty within the Land.
Galut is a complex concept, but in brief: traditional Jewish thought has held that our exile from the Land was a direct result of failing to live in a proper way, and therefore it could only be reversed by God during the final redemption (when 'the wolf will live with the lamb,' the dead will be resurrected, and so forth).
Crucially, mystical teachers from the Holy Ari to the Lubavitcher Rebbe have held that we were not sent into exile as a punishment, but rather because a time had arrived in which our holy work could no longer be done while dwelling all together in the Promised Land.
That is, galut is the state the Jewish people are supposed to exist in. We are now meant to live all around the world, in interrelationship with many other peoples.It used to be called Canaan. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg explains why that is no longer true. Even though her explanation is rooted in religion, it worth reading.
Coming out of slavery and into freedom, our ancestors had a dilemma: How will we live in the world? How will we strive for safety? What kind of people do we want to be?
They tried the path of conquest; genocide; sovereignty; military might. Maybe that path was incompatible with right living—with all those good relationships between people, Land, and Creator.
Maybe the fact that it ended badly is the entire point.
So our Creator removed us from that state and handed us a different task: galut. Where the rules we should live by are not those of domination and control, but of interrelation and coexistence.
Maybe those ancestors, so recently enslaved, didn’t know any better way to do things.
May we ourselves merit to find one, speedily and in our days."
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"Reading the story in light of the overall arc of Jewish history, we immediately see that as a people, we have spent much more time in the state that our tradition calls galut ('exile') than one of sovereignty within the Land.
Galut is a complex concept, but in brief: traditional Jewish thought has held that our exile from the Land was a direct result of failing to live in a proper way, and therefore it could only be reversed by God during the final redemption (when 'the wolf will live with the lamb,' the dead will be resurrected, and so forth).
Crucially, mystical teachers from the Holy Ari to the Lubavitcher Rebbe have held that we were not sent into exile as a punishment, but rather because a time had arrived in which our holy work could no longer be done while dwelling all together in the Promised Land.
That is, galut is the state the Jewish people are supposed to exist in. We are now meant to live all around the world, in interrelationship with many other peoples.It used to be called Canaan. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg explains why that is no longer true. Even though her explanation is rooted in religion, it worth reading.
Coming out of slavery and into freedom, our ancestors had a dilemma: How will we live in the world? How will we strive for safety? What kind of people do we want to be?
They tried the path of conquest; genocide; sovereignty; military might. Maybe that path was incompatible with right living—with all those good relationships between people, Land, and Creator.
Maybe the fact that it ended badly is the entire point.
So our Creator removed us from that state and handed us a different task: galut. Where the rules we should live by are not those of domination and control, but of interrelation and coexistence.
Maybe those ancestors, so recently enslaved, didn’t know any better way to do things.
May we ourselves merit to find one, speedily and in our days."
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"Hitler’s Edifice Complex
He was obsessed with adding an expensive new wing to the Reich Chancellery, part of his grandiose architectural ambitions for the nation’s capital.
He wanted it big. He wanted lots of gold, lots of marble. He wanted visitors awestruck by his architectural expansion of the country’s symbolic seat of power. 'They should sense the strength and grandeur of the German Reich as they walk from the entrance to the reception hall,' Adolf Hitler told his chief architect, Albert Speer, outlining his plans for an extension to the old Reich chancellery, at Wilhelmstrasse 77 in Berlin.
The new annex, connected to the chancellery by a marble corridor hung with crystal chandeliers, was part of Hitler’s ambitious plans to align the Berlin cityscape with his vision for the future of the country. Hitler wanted a Triumphbogen, a triumphal arch, twice the size of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. He wanted an 'Avenue of Splendor' for military parades. 'The Champs-Élysées is a hundred meters wide,” Hitler told Speer. 'We will make our avenue twenty meters wider.' A planned Volkshalle was to accommodate 180,000. The Eiffel Tower could fit beneath its cupola. This 'Hall of the People' was to be topped by the largest swastika on Earth. Berlin itself was to be rechristened as Weltstadt Germania, 'Capital of the World.'"
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"The far-right’s dehumanization of trans people is similar to the Nazi’s treatment of Jewish people
Both treat marginalized people as 'internal enemies' and use propaganda and laws to turn society against them.
Throughout history, autocratic regimes, especially authoritarian or populist ones on the far left and the far right, have demonized what they have determined to represent their nations’ 'internal enemies,' foes who, if left to thrive, would undermine the security and very existence of these societies.
Regimes have done this to consolidate and expand its power, to divert attention away from misdeeds and failed economic and social policy initiatives, to justify repressive tactics, to stifle critical thinking, and to create a more pliant and obedient population.
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#ConspiracyTheories #coverups #déjà_vu #Marilyn #JFK #propaganda
"Overdose, suicide or murder? What really happened the night Marilyn died
In this exclusive extract from a new biography of the star, unpublished documents reveal the truth behind the Kennedy conspiracy theories
There have been other reports that suggest Marilyn died as early as 10.30pm on the Saturday night, and Dr Greenson did not report the death to the police until 4.25am on the Sunday morning.
Into the black hole of these few empty hours conspiracy theorists have injected a thousand wild conjectures. According to one of the most widely believed conspiracy theories, the delay in reporting the death would give Marilyn’s supposed murderers time to clear the house of any incriminating evidence. Central to the question of the alleged cover-up is Marilyn’s involvement with the Kennedy family.
Six weeks after Marilyn’s death, sergeant Jack Clemmons met with two men who – like him – had a vested interest in digging up dirt on the Kennedys. Clemmons was a director of the Right-wing Fire and Police Research Association of Los Angeles 'If you haven’t time to learn more about and to fight communism today,' runs the tagline for one of the organisation’s newsletters, 'you’d better start getting ready to learn how to live under it tomorrow!' Jim Dougherty, Marilyn’s first husband, was a colleague of Clemmons’s at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), where Jack was known for his extreme Right-wing views. 'The old rascal, he hates the Kennedys,' said Dougherty. 'He’s so far Right, I can’t tell you, if he stuck out his head he’d hit himself in the right eye… He would paint the Kennedys as black any way he could.'
Clemmons’s co-conspirators in a battle to bring down the liberal Kennedy clan – whom they thought were too sympathetic to far-Left causes – were Maurice Ries, president of the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and private detective turned Right-wing propagandist Frank Capell."
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#ConspiracyTheories #coverups #déjà_vu #Marilyn #JFK #propaganda
"Overdose, suicide or murder? What really happened the night Marilyn died
In this exclusive extract from a new biography of the star, unpublished documents reveal the truth behind the Kennedy conspiracy theories
There have been other reports that suggest Marilyn died as early as 10.30pm on the Saturday night, and Dr Greenson did not report the death to the police until 4.25am on the Sunday morning.
Into the black hole of these few empty hours conspiracy theorists have injected a thousand wild conjectures. According to one of the most widely believed conspiracy theories, the delay in reporting the death would give Marilyn’s supposed murderers time to clear the house of any incriminating evidence. Central to the question of the alleged cover-up is Marilyn’s involvement with the Kennedy family.
Six weeks after Marilyn’s death, sergeant Jack Clemmons met with two men who – like him – had a vested interest in digging up dirt on the Kennedys. Clemmons was a director of the Right-wing Fire and Police Research Association of Los Angeles 'If you haven’t time to learn more about and to fight communism today,' runs the tagline for one of the organisation’s newsletters, 'you’d better start getting ready to learn how to live under it tomorrow!' Jim Dougherty, Marilyn’s first husband, was a colleague of Clemmons’s at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), where Jack was known for his extreme Right-wing views. 'The old rascal, he hates the Kennedys,' said Dougherty. 'He’s so far Right, I can’t tell you, if he stuck out his head he’d hit himself in the right eye… He would paint the Kennedys as black any way he could.'
Clemmons’s co-conspirators in a battle to bring down the liberal Kennedy clan – whom they thought were too sympathetic to far-Left causes – were Maurice Ries, president of the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and private detective turned Right-wing propagandist Frank Capell."
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#ConspiracyTheories #coverups #déjà_vu #Marilyn #JFK #propaganda
"Overdose, suicide or murder? What really happened the night Marilyn died
In this exclusive extract from a new biography of the star, unpublished documents reveal the truth behind the Kennedy conspiracy theories
There have been other reports that suggest Marilyn died as early as 10.30pm on the Saturday night, and Dr Greenson did not report the death to the police until 4.25am on the Sunday morning.
Into the black hole of these few empty hours conspiracy theorists have injected a thousand wild conjectures. According to one of the most widely believed conspiracy theories, the delay in reporting the death would give Marilyn’s supposed murderers time to clear the house of any incriminating evidence. Central to the question of the alleged cover-up is Marilyn’s involvement with the Kennedy family.
Six weeks after Marilyn’s death, sergeant Jack Clemmons met with two men who – like him – had a vested interest in digging up dirt on the Kennedys. Clemmons was a director of the Right-wing Fire and Police Research Association of Los Angeles 'If you haven’t time to learn more about and to fight communism today,' runs the tagline for one of the organisation’s newsletters, 'you’d better start getting ready to learn how to live under it tomorrow!' Jim Dougherty, Marilyn’s first husband, was a colleague of Clemmons’s at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), where Jack was known for his extreme Right-wing views. 'The old rascal, he hates the Kennedys,' said Dougherty. 'He’s so far Right, I can’t tell you, if he stuck out his head he’d hit himself in the right eye… He would paint the Kennedys as black any way he could.'
Clemmons’s co-conspirators in a battle to bring down the liberal Kennedy clan – whom they thought were too sympathetic to far-Left causes – were Maurice Ries, president of the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and private detective turned Right-wing propagandist Frank Capell."
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#ConspiracyTheories #coverups #déjà_vu #Marilyn #JFK #propaganda
"Overdose, suicide or murder? What really happened the night Marilyn died
In this exclusive extract from a new biography of the star, unpublished documents reveal the truth behind the Kennedy conspiracy theories
There have been other reports that suggest Marilyn died as early as 10.30pm on the Saturday night, and Dr Greenson did not report the death to the police until 4.25am on the Sunday morning.
Into the black hole of these few empty hours conspiracy theorists have injected a thousand wild conjectures. According to one of the most widely believed conspiracy theories, the delay in reporting the death would give Marilyn’s supposed murderers time to clear the house of any incriminating evidence. Central to the question of the alleged cover-up is Marilyn’s involvement with the Kennedy family.
Six weeks after Marilyn’s death, sergeant Jack Clemmons met with two men who – like him – had a vested interest in digging up dirt on the Kennedys. Clemmons was a director of the Right-wing Fire and Police Research Association of Los Angeles 'If you haven’t time to learn more about and to fight communism today,' runs the tagline for one of the organisation’s newsletters, 'you’d better start getting ready to learn how to live under it tomorrow!' Jim Dougherty, Marilyn’s first husband, was a colleague of Clemmons’s at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), where Jack was known for his extreme Right-wing views. 'The old rascal, he hates the Kennedys,' said Dougherty. 'He’s so far Right, I can’t tell you, if he stuck out his head he’d hit himself in the right eye… He would paint the Kennedys as black any way he could.'
Clemmons’s co-conspirators in a battle to bring down the liberal Kennedy clan – whom they thought were too sympathetic to far-Left causes – were Maurice Ries, president of the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, and private detective turned Right-wing propagandist Frank Capell."
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"Today in History: February 20, Thousands attend pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden"
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#Bangladesh #déjà_vu #nepobaby
"Who is Tarique Rahman, set to become Bangladesh's next PM?
Tarique Rahman is to be the new prime minister of Bangladesh after his centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won enough seats to secure a majority in the general election.
Rahman, 60, is the figurehead of the influential Zia family, who lead one of two parties that have dominated politics in the country for decades. Both of his parents previously served as leaders of Bangladesh.
Yet it has been far from a smooth path to the top for Rahman, whose career has been dogged by allegations of nepotism and corruption by political rivals, as well as a long period of exile and his father's assassination when Rahman was a teenager.
His eventual ascent to chairman of the BNP came just weeks before Bangladesh headed to the polls, following the death of his mother, the country's first female prime minister Khaleda Zia.
Rahman first became active within the BNP in 2001, when he was in his mid-30s.
It was the start of his mother's second period as prime minister. Her first had run from 1991 to 1996. His father, Ziaur Rahman, a military ruler turned president, had been killed in a military coup in 1981. He was a leading figure in Bangladesh's struggle for independence and founded the BNP in 1978.
In 2002, Rahman took his first significant steps in his parents' footprints, when it was announced that he had been promoted to a senior position within the party.
At the time, the opposition described his rise as brazen nepotism. He would go on to acquire a reputation for being a 'hatchet man' who enforced party discipline.
Rahman has also been accused in the past of using his power to gain personal advantages but has always denied the corruption allegations against him. Some of his supporters believe he was used as a political scapegoat by his opponents.
He was arrested on corruption charges in 2007 during a military-backed caretaker government and said he was tortured while awaiting trial. He spent 18 months in prison before being released and then left the country for London.
Reports at the time suggested that he had promised to leave politics in order to be allowed to leave Bangladesh.
Rahman would not return to his home country for another 17 years.
Yet despite living abroad, Rahman continued to shape BNP strategy and policies and had been the party's acting chairman since his mother was sentenced to prison in 2018.
He too was subject to various criminal investigations while Sheikh Hasina, toppled by mass protests in 2004, was in power and he was sentenced in absentia in numerous cases, including for his role in a deadly grenade attack on a political rally in 2004. He was later cleared of all charges.
He finally returned to Bangladesh on 25 December 2025. Five days later, his mother died.
On 9 January, he officially became the BNP's leader. Analysts say that his rise to leadership in the BNP was inevitable."
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A chapter from my as yet unpublished book:
Dagwood
Saturday in the park, I think it was the Fourth of July. It was 1970 and the Nixon regime was throwing an extra special, really big, super duper event to celebrate, and for Americans to "put aside their honest differences and rally around the flag to show national unity," as if that were even possible. It wasn’t, not that year. Billy Graham was scheduled to speak on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The front cover of Time magazine predicted 50,000 people would come to hear and applaud him. Fewer than 5,000 actually showed. There were 20,000 plus anti-war protesters who showed up to meet them. We swamped the Graham fans. They took one look at us coming their way and scattered. We occupied the steps of the Memorial. We did this without any violence. We just outnumbered them, that's all. They'd heard bad things about us. They could count heads. They were afraid. They left. We had no intention of hurting any of them but they didn't know that. All they knew is what the media of the day was telling them. The media was calling us “communists”. It’s a uniquely American idiom that has gained traction around the world. It means something like “nun-raping baby eaters, lurking under your bed right now, just waiting for the chance to sink their scaly yellow fangs into the soft, pink flesh of your ankle”, so that's what they thought we were.
That wasn't how the day started, though. Earlier, there had been a smoke-in at the Washington Monument, at the other end of the Reflecting Pool. At least twenty thousand Yippies and a ton of weed showed up. My comrade Denny and I brought two shopping bags full of rolled up joints. We'd stayed up all night and rolling. I was working as a bag man for a mid-level dealer at the time, so plenty of weed was available. One French baguette stuck out each bag so at a glance or from a distance it looked like we too were bringing food for a picnic.
There were many dozens of straight people scattered around, picnicking to celebrate the holiday. As we approached the crowd at the Washington Monument, shopping bags in hand, one young couple caught our eye. It was a blazing hot day, but he was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, a tie and an American flag pin. She wore a skirt that came half way down her calves, and a long-sleeved white blouse buttoned over a torpedo bra. Her hair was up. They had a baby in a basket. They didn't like the look of us at all. We thought they looked like characters from the long-running comic strip, Dagwood and Blondie. That's what we called them when we were out of earshot. We waited till then because we didn't want to offend fellow workers, even Republicans.
We proceeded to the Washington Monument, where we got a lot of people high. Then we swarmed the Lincoln Memorial steps and displaced the Graham fans. Even though we were totally peaceful, the cops were having none of it. One thing led to another and the cops thew up a wall of gas and swept through it, clubbing people at random. My affinity group broke out and retreated to Georgetown, pelting the cops all the way. As we were retreating we passed Dagwood and Blondie. They and their baby had been gassed. The baby was red as a beet and screaming at the top of its lungs. Dagwood and Blondie were taking turns dipping it in a fountain and splashing water on it with their hands. They were trying to wash the gas off. They both were frantic and distraught. Tears ran from their eyes. Snot drooled from their noses. They reeked of CS gas. They were shaking with anger and fear. Dagwood was cursing profusely.
We retreated, regrouped in an air-conditioned bar, and rested till dark. Later than night we went back there and fought the cops. It was a furious brawl because they couldn't use gas. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction, so the fight was all clubs and shields and we outnumbered them. In those days metal garbage cans with tight fitting lids were common. The lids were circular with handles in the middle. People had collected a bunch of them and were using them as improvised shields. Some people had collected pieces of scrap lumber and conduit from nearby construction sites and were using them as clubs. Rocks and bottles flew like hail.
That night there was a live TV broadcast of a concert that featured many contemporary stars. Our plan was to provoke the cops into using their gas while the star-studded revue was being broadcast live just downwind of our position. Thousands of us did our level, sweaty best to force them to use that gas. It would have blown over the concert and the whole world would have seen on live TV that American opposition to the Viet Nam War was serious and unrelenting. It would have been a major propaganda coup for the anti-war movement so they couldn’t use gas till the show was over and they knew that we knew it.
By the time James Brown hit the stage there was a major riot in progress, a real mêlée. It looked medieval. Just upwind of the concert a few hundred cops had formed a circular perimeter with what appeared to be reserves in the center of the circle. It was easy to tell who the ranking brass was. They had walkie-talkies. They seemed to be rotating individuals in and out of the main defensive line on their perimeter to rest them in the interior reserve position.
In this, it reminded me of sports. Getting benched for a few plays to catch a quick breather in the midst of a strenuous game is always refreshing for the player in question. For the team it potentiates collective stamina. In fights between individuals, it’s always advantageous to pace yourself so that the other guy gets tired first. Muhammad Ali called this his rope a dope strategy. It’s as good a name as any. It can be very effective. It also works in group conflict situations. Guerrilla warfare depends upon it. As Irish nationalist Terence Macswiney once put it, “It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer.”
Despite superficial similarities, riots are not sporting events. While they both require similar speed, agility, endurance, and grit, different rules apply. In sports, all the rules stay the same for the duration of the match, and usually for the season. In a riot, some rules are constant while others can change on a whim. Either side may invoke this rule change rule at any time. It keeps the game interesting. However, it's not really a game. It's deadly serious, sometimes literally. The Kent State and Jackson State Massacres were only two months in our rear view mirror that night. They were never far from our minds.
The DC riot squad was the best disciplined riot squad that I ever fought. They stood their ground and fought well. Their unit cohesion was superb. Clearly, they’d practiced. I’m sure they really, really would have preferred to gas us sooner, but obviously the brass had declared it verboten while the live TV cameras were rolling downwind. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Just following orders, as the saying goes, so the cops held back, no matter how hard we beat on them and pelted them with rocks and bottles.
At one point we locked shields and drove a wedge through their line. They immediately deployed their reserves, who technically at least, were as trapped and surrounded as any of the cops defending the perimeter. They pushed us back and reformed their perimeter line. In the meantime, I was on the left side of the wedge, three or four places from the point. We had just broken through their line. I glanced over my shoulder to see how we were doing. There on the other side of the wedge, about three or four places from the point, was Dagwood. His tie was loose, his hair was mussed, his sleeves were rolled and he was beating on a cop with a 2x4. The cop was beating back and had a better shield with which to protect himself but Dagwood was getting the best of him anyway. Dagwood fought like a berserker. It was such a fascinating sight that I didn't see a club coming and got knocked out. Some people dragged me to safety.
Medical science agrees that someone who has been knocked unconscious for any reason, should not be moved at least until they come to and can be evaluated for concussion and spinal cord injury. There's an established protocol for dealing with this. I've been through it several times, but not on this night. On this night I came around pretty quickly on my own. Back on my feet, I thanked the strangers who had dragged me out of harm's way. I could have gotten trampled. Getting trampled is nowhere near a much as fun as it sounds.
I shook off any assistance and got back in the fight. By that time it was pretty chaotic. It was becoming a classic fur ball. The cops finally got permission to gas us and we had to disengage and fall back. I never saw Dagwood again. I don't know what happened to him, but I seriously doubt if he ever went back to the pro-war side of America's long national nightmare, or if ever he respected cops at all again, ever. I seriously doubt it. Police brutality, tear gas in particular, is a radicalizing force. It must be addictive, too, because even to this day, people who get a taste of gas keep going back for more. Back in the day, we'd pick up the fuming canisters and throw them back at the cops. They're really hot. You needed welder's gloves, or at least Moe and Joe brand work gloves. In Portland in 2020, the Wall of Dads made all that obsolete when they dispersed tear gas with with leaf blowers. It was a stroke of genius, but it was fifty years too late to help us on that Fourth of July, 1970. We came back for more, anyway.
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A chapter from an as yet unpublished book:
* * * * *
Without Result
I've never been shot. I have been shot at, though. It was by the Berkeley police. I didn't like it at all. It was disconcerting, to say the very least. It happened during the so-called "Volleyball Riot," in 1991. It was one of a decades-long series of confrontations about who controls People's Park.
I wasn't actually rioting at the time. I was an innocent bystander who was breaking no law. I lived in Berkeley and had every legal right to be standing on the sidewalk where I was talking on what was then a pay phone on the outside wall of what was then Cody's Books, at the corner of Haste and Telegraph. I was explaining to my friend that I was going to be late for his birthday party because there was a furious riot going on between me and the structure where I my bike was parked. I was going to have to walk the long way around it before I could ride to the party in Oakland and no, I didn't mind missing out on the riot. It was just another Berkeley riot, one of many. Ho hum. They happened a lot during that era. I could always go to the next one. In this case, it would most likely be the following night. My friend's birthday party was only once a year.
I hung up the phone and looked up the street. The cops were coming down Telegraph Avenue in formation and in force. The front row carried shotguns. When they reached the corner of Haste St., the column halted and the front row pivoted, the way Chamberlain's 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment had pivoted at Little Round Top when Evander Law's Alabamians came at them for the last time. It swept the Rebs off the hill like a broom. It's called a "right-wheel forward" maneuver. From above, it looks like a swinging door. It saved the Union's day at Gettysburg. Had it not, Mead would have been flanked and the battle lost. The lessons of history are not to be lost. As a history buff who grew up in the state where it happened, I recognized the maneuver immediately. It looked ominous, especially the shotguns.
Suddenly the cops were bisecting the intersection diagonally. They halted and shouldered their shotguns and pointed them straight at us folks on the sidewalk. They were at point blank range. Having a row of shotguns pointed at you point blank is disconcerting under any circumstances, but here especially. I flashed on the role of shotguns at the original People's Park riot. Roughly two hundred people were shot, almost all of them with shotguns. One of them, a bystander named James Rector, died from his wounds. An artist, Alan Blanchard, lost both his eyes to a load of birdshot directly in his face.
Governor Reagan had said, "If this takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with." It's still not over with. There have been decades of resistance to protect People's Park. There will be more. People's Park is an idea that a great many people have felt was worth fighting for. For a few, like Rosebud Denovo, it was worth dying for.
Not me. There's an old chess maxim, never trade men for position. Maneuver is everything. But there I was, decades later, in the same place, in a situation not dissimilar to James Rector's, an innocent observer suddenly "under the gun." I assumed they were about to kill us. I didn't have time to be scared before they fired a volley of so-called "rubber bullets" at us. They're not really rubber. They're wooden dowels coated with rubber. Sometimes they're not wood, they're steel. At that range either can kill. It was not aimed fire. It was a volley in our general direction.
Instructions on the box these so-called “less than lethal” rounds come in says they're supposed to be fired from a hundred yards away, aimed at a point on the ground about fifty yards away, so they ricochet upwards and strike the victim in the crotch. We can debate the relative humanity of such a maneuver, but why bother? Either way, the cops do what they do. What they did was fire a volley at point blank range in the general direction of myself and a number of other innocents on the sidewalk, while the actual rioters were half a block away on Telegraph, retreating behind a hail of rocks and bottles, south towards Dwight Way.
One projectile hit the wall just beside me at the level of my throat, about a foot to my right. A second one simultaneously hit the wall about 18" to my left, also at the level of my throat. Had either round struck my larynx, I wouldn't be here telling this story. It wasn't the nearest near death experience I've ever had in my life, but it certainly ranks. I say that as someone who rode motorcycles in traffic for decades. Near death was all around me everywhere I went. I never got killed, not even once. I broke a few bones, but nothing important. I lived to tell the tale. That’s what counts. But too close for comfort is close enough for me.
We all ran for our lives down Haste St. as fast as our feet could carry us. I have a game knee from an old hit and run, so I run kind of lopsided, but I was making pretty good time for a gimp. Adrenaline is the best drug. For one thing, it's free. Halfway down the first block, a guy who had been watching from the porch of the house next door to Cody's was running to my right. He was just starting to pull ahead of me when the cops fired another volley. I could hear the projectiles whiz past my head. They sounded like bees.
Blood suddenly spattered from this guy's head and he went down face first and lay still. I figured he was a dead man, so there was no point in getting myself killed trying to drag him to safety. I kept running. I didn't slow down till I was well past Shattuck Ave. and didn't stop for breath till I reached Sacramento St. As it turned out later, whatever the round was, it had only nicked this guy's scalp and missed the bone entirely. His skull was still intact. I didn't know that at the time. I thought we were being slaughtered from behind and assumed that he was a casualty. For the moment at least, I was not. Retreat was the frugal option. An inch lower and it would have at the very least given him a TBI if not a toe tag. There are a lot of veins and arteries in the scalp, which accounted for all the blood. He was a very lucky man.
I learned the truth the very next night when I saw this guy out in the street with his head swathed in bandages. Other than that he was alright. He was mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore. We both were. We weren’t the only ones, either. This time we didn’t run. We both joined in the rioting because when someone nearly kills you and you do nothing about it, that's nature's way of telling you that you're too stupid to live. I was building a barricade. He was throwing rocks at the cops. How smart any of this was I'll leave for history to decide. He said he figured they had it coming. It was the first time in his life he had ever done such a thing. Repression always inspires resistance.
By then it was the fourth straight night of rioting. Reinforcements were streaming in from the countryside, many of them veterans of the first People's Park riot. Alameda County had exhausted its riot control budget and the state government in Sacramento refused to come to their rescue, so they stood down. We'd won. Cops like us to think they're omnipotent. They aren't. People's Park had proved that once again.
Winston Churchill once said, "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." Personally, I have a lot of trouble with how history portrays Churchill. In real life he was a bloodthirsty, racist, war criminal with, as he himself put it, "a bodyguard of lies." But he fought Nazis, so he wasn’t all bad. No one who fights Nazis is all bad. Nazis are always the right ones to fight. They’re not the only ones, but they certainly head the list. Churchill got that right. He got one other thing right, too. To be shot at without result really is exhilarating. I'm not the only one who can attest to this. I'm just one you know about. The adrenaline pumps, the heart quickens, the eyes grow wide and the fact you're alive is never clearer in the mind. Sometimes we forget we're alive. We've become so used to it. Not so when the guns begin to shoot.
I do not, however, think you should do this sort of thing for sport. Quite the contrary, when lacking a strong moral imperative to the contrary, I highly recommend that you avoid getting shot at, whenever, wherever, as often as possible, and as soon as you can possibly manage to start. That does not mean you should ignore moral imperatives. It does mean that when you open that door, you have to deal with whatever comes through. You'll never get out of this world alive. We all die. We never know for sure when that will happen, only that it will. The best we can hope for is to die looking good. That itself is the prime moral imperative.
-
A chapter from an as yet unpublished book:
* * * * *
Without Result
I've never been shot. I have been shot at, though. It was by the Berkeley police. I didn't like it at all. It was disconcerting, to say the very least. It happened during the so-called "Volleyball Riot," in 1991. It was one of a decades-long series of confrontations about who controls People's Park.
I wasn't actually rioting at the time. I was an innocent bystander who was breaking no law. I lived in Berkeley and had every legal right to be standing on the sidewalk where I was talking on what was then a pay phone on the outside wall of what was then Cody's Books, at the corner of Haste and Telegraph. I was explaining to my friend that I was going to be late for his birthday party because there was a furious riot going on between me and the structure where I my bike was parked. I was going to have to walk the long way around it before I could ride to the party in Oakland and no, I didn't mind missing out on the riot. It was just another Berkeley riot, one of many. Ho hum. They happened a lot during that era. I could always go to the next one. In this case, it would most likely be the following night. My friend's birthday party was only once a year.
I hung up the phone and looked up the street. The cops were coming down Telegraph Avenue in formation and in force. The front row carried shotguns. When they reached the corner of Haste St., the column halted and the front row pivoted, the way Chamberlain's 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment had pivoted at Little Round Top when Evander Law's Alabamians came at them for the last time. It swept the Rebs off the hill like a broom. It's called a "right-wheel forward" maneuver. From above, it looks like a swinging door. It saved the Union's day at Gettysburg. Had it not, Mead would have been flanked and the battle lost. The lessons of history are not to be lost. As a history buff who grew up in the state where it happened, I recognized the maneuver immediately. It looked ominous, especially the shotguns.
Suddenly the cops were bisecting the intersection diagonally. They halted and shouldered their shotguns and pointed them straight at us folks on the sidewalk. They were at point blank range. Having a row of shotguns pointed at you point blank is disconcerting under any circumstances, but here especially. I flashed on the role of shotguns at the original People's Park riot. Roughly two hundred people were shot, almost all of them with shotguns. One of them, a bystander named James Rector, died from his wounds. An artist, Alan Blanchard, lost both his eyes to a load of birdshot directly in his face.
Governor Reagan had said, "If this takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with." It's still not over with. There have been decades of resistance to protect People's Park. There will be more. People's Park is an idea that a great many people have felt was worth fighting for. For a few, like Rosebud Denovo, it was worth dying for.
Not me. There's an old chess maxim, never trade men for position. Maneuver is everything. But there I was, decades later, in the same place, in a situation not dissimilar to James Rector's, an innocent observer suddenly "under the gun." I assumed they were about to kill us. I didn't have time to be scared before they fired a volley of so-called "rubber bullets" at us. They're not really rubber. They're wooden dowels coated with rubber. Sometimes they're not wood, they're steel. At that range either can kill. It was not aimed fire. It was a volley in our general direction.
Instructions on the box these so-called “less than lethal” rounds come in says they're supposed to be fired from a hundred yards away, aimed at a point on the ground about fifty yards away, so they ricochet upwards and strike the victim in the crotch. We can debate the relative humanity of such a maneuver, but why bother? Either way, the cops do what they do. What they did was fire a volley at point blank range in the general direction of myself and a number of other innocents on the sidewalk, while the actual rioters were half a block away on Telegraph, retreating behind a hail of rocks and bottles, south towards Dwight Way.
One projectile hit the wall just beside me at the level of my throat, about a foot to my right. A second one simultaneously hit the wall about 18" to my left, also at the level of my throat. Had either round struck my larynx, I wouldn't be here telling this story. It wasn't the nearest near death experience I've ever had in my life, but it certainly ranks. I say that as someone who rode motorcycles in traffic for decades. Near death was all around me everywhere I went. I never got killed, not even once. I broke a few bones, but nothing important. I lived to tell the tale. That’s what counts. But too close for comfort is close enough for me.
We all ran for our lives down Haste St. as fast as our feet could carry us. I have a game knee from an old hit and run, so I run kind of lopsided, but I was making pretty good time for a gimp. Adrenaline is the best drug. For one thing, it's free. Halfway down the first block, a guy who had been watching from the porch of the house next door to Cody's was running to my right. He was just starting to pull ahead of me when the cops fired another volley. I could hear the projectiles whiz past my head. They sounded like bees.
Blood suddenly spattered from this guy's head and he went down face first and lay still. I figured he was a dead man, so there was no point in getting myself killed trying to drag him to safety. I kept running. I didn't slow down till I was well past Shattuck Ave. and didn't stop for breath till I reached Sacramento St. As it turned out later, whatever the round was, it had only nicked this guy's scalp and missed the bone entirely. His skull was still intact. I didn't know that at the time. I thought we were being slaughtered from behind and assumed that he was a casualty. For the moment at least, I was not. Retreat was the frugal option. An inch lower and it would have at the very least given him a TBI if not a toe tag. There are a lot of veins and arteries in the scalp, which accounted for all the blood. He was a very lucky man.
I learned the truth the very next night when I saw this guy out in the street with his head swathed in bandages. Other than that he was alright. He was mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore. We both were. We weren’t the only ones, either. This time we didn’t run. We both joined in the rioting because when someone nearly kills you and you do nothing about it, that's nature's way of telling you that you're too stupid to live. I was building a barricade. He was throwing rocks at the cops. How smart any of this was I'll leave for history to decide. He said he figured they had it coming. It was the first time in his life he had ever done such a thing. Repression always inspires resistance.
By then it was the fourth straight night of rioting. Reinforcements were streaming in from the countryside, many of them veterans of the first People's Park riot. Alameda County had exhausted its riot control budget and the state government in Sacramento refused to come to their rescue, so they stood down. We'd won. Cops like us to think they're omnipotent. They aren't. People's Park had proved that once again.
Winston Churchill once said, "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." Personally, I have a lot of trouble with how history portrays Churchill. In real life he was a bloodthirsty, racist, war criminal with, as he himself put it, "a bodyguard of lies." But he fought Nazis, so he wasn’t all bad. No one who fights Nazis is all bad. Nazis are always the right ones to fight. They’re not the only ones, but they certainly head the list. Churchill got that right. He got one other thing right, too. To be shot at without result really is exhilarating. I'm not the only one who can attest to this. I'm just one you know about. The adrenaline pumps, the heart quickens, the eyes grow wide and the fact you're alive is never clearer in the mind. Sometimes we forget we're alive. We've become so used to it. Not so when the guns begin to shoot.
I do not, however, think you should do this sort of thing for sport. Quite the contrary, when lacking a strong moral imperative to the contrary, I highly recommend that you avoid getting shot at, whenever, wherever, as often as possible, and as soon as you can possibly manage to start. That does not mean you should ignore moral imperatives. It does mean that when you open that door, you have to deal with whatever comes through. You'll never get out of this world alive. We all die. We never know for sure when that will happen, only that it will. The best we can hope for is to die looking good. That itself is the prime moral imperative.
-
A chapter from an as yet unpublished book:
* * * * *
Without Result
I've never been shot. I have been shot at, though. It was by the Berkeley police. I didn't like it at all. It was disconcerting, to say the very least. It happened during the so-called "Volleyball Riot," in 1991. It was one of a decades-long series of confrontations about who controls People's Park.
I wasn't actually rioting at the time. I was an innocent bystander who was breaking no law. I lived in Berkeley and had every legal right to be standing on the sidewalk where I was talking on what was then a pay phone on the outside wall of what was then Cody's Books, at the corner of Haste and Telegraph. I was explaining to my friend that I was going to be late for his birthday party because there was a furious riot going on between me and the structure where I my bike was parked. I was going to have to walk the long way around it before I could ride to the party in Oakland and no, I didn't mind missing out on the riot. It was just another Berkeley riot, one of many. Ho hum. They happened a lot during that era. I could always go to the next one. In this case, it would most likely be the following night. My friend's birthday party was only once a year.
I hung up the phone and looked up the street. The cops were coming down Telegraph Avenue in formation and in force. The front row carried shotguns. When they reached the corner of Haste St., the column halted and the front row pivoted, the way Chamberlain's 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment had pivoted at Little Round Top when Evander Law's Alabamians came at them for the last time. It swept the Rebs off the hill like a broom. It's called a "right-wheel forward" maneuver. From above, it looks like a swinging door. It saved the Union's day at Gettysburg. Had it not, Mead would have been flanked and the battle lost. The lessons of history are not to be lost. As a history buff who grew up in the state where it happened, I recognized the maneuver immediately. It looked ominous, especially the shotguns.
Suddenly the cops were bisecting the intersection diagonally. They halted and shouldered their shotguns and pointed them straight at us folks on the sidewalk. They were at point blank range. Having a row of shotguns pointed at you point blank is disconcerting under any circumstances, but here especially. I flashed on the role of shotguns at the original People's Park riot. Roughly two hundred people were shot, almost all of them with shotguns. One of them, a bystander named James Rector, died from his wounds. An artist, Alan Blanchard, lost both his eyes to a load of birdshot directly in his face.
Governor Reagan had said, "If this takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with." It's still not over with. There have been decades of resistance to protect People's Park. There will be more. People's Park is an idea that a great many people have felt was worth fighting for. For a few, like Rosebud Denovo, it was worth dying for.
Not me. There's an old chess maxim, never trade men for position. Maneuver is everything. But there I was, decades later, in the same place, in a situation not dissimilar to James Rector's, an innocent observer suddenly "under the gun." I assumed they were about to kill us. I didn't have time to be scared before they fired a volley of so-called "rubber bullets" at us. They're not really rubber. They're wooden dowels coated with rubber. Sometimes they're not wood, they're steel. At that range either can kill. It was not aimed fire. It was a volley in our general direction.
Instructions on the box these so-called “less than lethal” rounds come in says they're supposed to be fired from a hundred yards away, aimed at a point on the ground about fifty yards away, so they ricochet upwards and strike the victim in the crotch. We can debate the relative humanity of such a maneuver, but why bother? Either way, the cops do what they do. What they did was fire a volley at point blank range in the general direction of myself and a number of other innocents on the sidewalk, while the actual rioters were half a block away on Telegraph, retreating behind a hail of rocks and bottles, south towards Dwight Way.
One projectile hit the wall just beside me at the level of my throat, about a foot to my right. A second one simultaneously hit the wall about 18" to my left, also at the level of my throat. Had either round struck my larynx, I wouldn't be here telling this story. It wasn't the nearest near death experience I've ever had in my life, but it certainly ranks. I say that as someone who rode motorcycles in traffic for decades. Near death was all around me everywhere I went. I never got killed, not even once. I broke a few bones, but nothing important. I lived to tell the tale. That’s what counts. But too close for comfort is close enough for me.
We all ran for our lives down Haste St. as fast as our feet could carry us. I have a game knee from an old hit and run, so I run kind of lopsided, but I was making pretty good time for a gimp. Adrenaline is the best drug. For one thing, it's free. Halfway down the first block, a guy who had been watching from the porch of the house next door to Cody's was running to my right. He was just starting to pull ahead of me when the cops fired another volley. I could hear the projectiles whiz past my head. They sounded like bees.
Blood suddenly spattered from this guy's head and he went down face first and lay still. I figured he was a dead man, so there was no point in getting myself killed trying to drag him to safety. I kept running. I didn't slow down till I was well past Shattuck Ave. and didn't stop for breath till I reached Sacramento St. As it turned out later, whatever the round was, it had only nicked this guy's scalp and missed the bone entirely. His skull was still intact. I didn't know that at the time. I thought we were being slaughtered from behind and assumed that he was a casualty. For the moment at least, I was not. Retreat was the frugal option. An inch lower and it would have at the very least given him a TBI if not a toe tag. There are a lot of veins and arteries in the scalp, which accounted for all the blood. He was a very lucky man.
I learned the truth the very next night when I saw this guy out in the street with his head swathed in bandages. Other than that he was alright. He was mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore. We both were. We weren’t the only ones, either. This time we didn’t run. We both joined in the rioting because when someone nearly kills you and you do nothing about it, that's nature's way of telling you that you're too stupid to live. I was building a barricade. He was throwing rocks at the cops. How smart any of this was I'll leave for history to decide. He said he figured they had it coming. It was the first time in his life he had ever done such a thing. Repression always inspires resistance.
By then it was the fourth straight night of rioting. Reinforcements were streaming in from the countryside, many of them veterans of the first People's Park riot. Alameda County had exhausted its riot control budget and the state government in Sacramento refused to come to their rescue, so they stood down. We'd won. Cops like us to think they're omnipotent. They aren't. People's Park had proved that once again.
Winston Churchill once said, "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." Personally, I have a lot of trouble with how history portrays Churchill. In real life he was a bloodthirsty, racist, war criminal with, as he himself put it, "a bodyguard of lies." But he fought Nazis, so he wasn’t all bad. No one who fights Nazis is all bad. Nazis are always the right ones to fight. They’re not the only ones, but they certainly head the list. Churchill got that right. He got one other thing right, too. To be shot at without result really is exhilarating. I'm not the only one who can attest to this. I'm just one you know about. The adrenaline pumps, the heart quickens, the eyes grow wide and the fact you're alive is never clearer in the mind. Sometimes we forget we're alive. We've become so used to it. Not so when the guns begin to shoot.
I do not, however, think you should do this sort of thing for sport. Quite the contrary, when lacking a strong moral imperative to the contrary, I highly recommend that you avoid getting shot at, whenever, wherever, as often as possible, and as soon as you can possibly manage to start. That does not mean you should ignore moral imperatives. It does mean that when you open that door, you have to deal with whatever comes through. You'll never get out of this world alive. We all die. We never know for sure when that will happen, only that it will. The best we can hope for is to die looking good. That itself is the prime moral imperative.
-
#RefugeeBlues #WHAuden #déjà_vu #poetry
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. -
#RefugeeBlues #WHAuden #déjà_vu #poetry
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. -
#RefugeeBlues #WHAuden #déjà_vu #poetry
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. -
#RefugeeBlues #WHAuden #déjà_vu #poetry
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me. -
'If they mean to have a war, let it begin here' -- Captain John Parker, at Lexington 1775 (attributed)
'Let the troops pass by, and don’t molest them, without they begin first.' -- what he probably said, or something like it.
'Capt. Parker ordered his men to stand their ground and not to molest the regulars, unless they meddled with us.' -- eye witness Ebenezer Munroe
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"We're the Cops of the World" by Phil Ochs
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"Someone made a huge profit predicting Maduro's capture. Here's what happened.
Traders and speculative bettors earned huge profits on prediction markets because of the capture of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.
Why it matters: Though the capture of Maduro seemed to come out of the blue for many Americans, some were ahead of the curve, netting them thousands of dollars.
• These bets — many of which were on Maduro's capture, and are now on what happens next to the ousted leader — will renew longstanding questions about inside information and access to prediction markets.
Driving the news: Traders on Polymarket appeared to anticipate Maduro's capture late Friday night, before President Trump announced it early Saturday morning.
• The market for whether or not Maduro would be out of power climbed shortly before 10pm ET on Friday, after hovering in the low single digits for weeks, per the Wall Street Journal.
• What appears to be a newly created account appeared to invest $30,000 Friday in Maduro's exit. After Maduro went into custody Saturday morning, that same investor netted $436,759.61.
• Polymarket did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment Saturday morning.State of play: Polymarket was packed with questions related to the Venezuela news Saturday morning.
• The question of 'Maduro in U.S. custody by January 31?' spiked around 4:20am ET — around the time of Trump's announcement — after hovering at a low level for weeks.
• There was a slight bump close to 3am ET, though.
Yes, but: The timing was still a surprise for some. The prediction site Kalshi showed the market for Maduro leaving office before February at around 13 cents.
Between the lines: There've been noteworthy prediction market swings over political battles, sports matches and other moments, so the idea that Maduro's capture was of interest to bettors isn't new.
• Prediction markets really gained nationwide buzz after they shook up the 2024 presidential election, when they showed a stark disparity with political analysts.
What's next: Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) will reportedly introduce a new bill — the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 — to limit federal elected officials and some political figures from engaging in prediction markets.
The bottom line: It's clearly possible to profit off big news events.
• But that might not be the case much longer."
-
"Someone made a huge profit predicting Maduro's capture. Here's what happened.
Traders and speculative bettors earned huge profits on prediction markets because of the capture of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.
Why it matters: Though the capture of Maduro seemed to come out of the blue for many Americans, some were ahead of the curve, netting them thousands of dollars.
• These bets — many of which were on Maduro's capture, and are now on what happens next to the ousted leader — will renew longstanding questions about inside information and access to prediction markets.
Driving the news: Traders on Polymarket appeared to anticipate Maduro's capture late Friday night, before President Trump announced it early Saturday morning.
• The market for whether or not Maduro would be out of power climbed shortly before 10pm ET on Friday, after hovering in the low single digits for weeks, per the Wall Street Journal.
• What appears to be a newly created account appeared to invest $30,000 Friday in Maduro's exit. After Maduro went into custody Saturday morning, that same investor netted $436,759.61.
• Polymarket did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment Saturday morning.State of play: Polymarket was packed with questions related to the Venezuela news Saturday morning.
• The question of 'Maduro in U.S. custody by January 31?' spiked around 4:20am ET — around the time of Trump's announcement — after hovering at a low level for weeks.
• There was a slight bump close to 3am ET, though.
Yes, but: The timing was still a surprise for some. The prediction site Kalshi showed the market for Maduro leaving office before February at around 13 cents.
Between the lines: There've been noteworthy prediction market swings over political battles, sports matches and other moments, so the idea that Maduro's capture was of interest to bettors isn't new.
• Prediction markets really gained nationwide buzz after they shook up the 2024 presidential election, when they showed a stark disparity with political analysts.
What's next: Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) will reportedly introduce a new bill — the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 — to limit federal elected officials and some political figures from engaging in prediction markets.
The bottom line: It's clearly possible to profit off big news events.
• But that might not be the case much longer."
-
"Someone made a huge profit predicting Maduro's capture. Here's what happened.
Traders and speculative bettors earned huge profits on prediction markets because of the capture of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.
Why it matters: Though the capture of Maduro seemed to come out of the blue for many Americans, some were ahead of the curve, netting them thousands of dollars.
• These bets — many of which were on Maduro's capture, and are now on what happens next to the ousted leader — will renew longstanding questions about inside information and access to prediction markets.
Driving the news: Traders on Polymarket appeared to anticipate Maduro's capture late Friday night, before President Trump announced it early Saturday morning.
• The market for whether or not Maduro would be out of power climbed shortly before 10pm ET on Friday, after hovering in the low single digits for weeks, per the Wall Street Journal.
• What appears to be a newly created account appeared to invest $30,000 Friday in Maduro's exit. After Maduro went into custody Saturday morning, that same investor netted $436,759.61.
• Polymarket did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment Saturday morning.State of play: Polymarket was packed with questions related to the Venezuela news Saturday morning.
• The question of 'Maduro in U.S. custody by January 31?' spiked around 4:20am ET — around the time of Trump's announcement — after hovering at a low level for weeks.
• There was a slight bump close to 3am ET, though.
Yes, but: The timing was still a surprise for some. The prediction site Kalshi showed the market for Maduro leaving office before February at around 13 cents.
Between the lines: There've been noteworthy prediction market swings over political battles, sports matches and other moments, so the idea that Maduro's capture was of interest to bettors isn't new.
• Prediction markets really gained nationwide buzz after they shook up the 2024 presidential election, when they showed a stark disparity with political analysts.
What's next: Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) will reportedly introduce a new bill — the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 — to limit federal elected officials and some political figures from engaging in prediction markets.
The bottom line: It's clearly possible to profit off big news events.
• But that might not be the case much longer."
-
"Someone made a huge profit predicting Maduro's capture. Here's what happened.
Traders and speculative bettors earned huge profits on prediction markets because of the capture of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.
Why it matters: Though the capture of Maduro seemed to come out of the blue for many Americans, some were ahead of the curve, netting them thousands of dollars.
• These bets — many of which were on Maduro's capture, and are now on what happens next to the ousted leader — will renew longstanding questions about inside information and access to prediction markets.
Driving the news: Traders on Polymarket appeared to anticipate Maduro's capture late Friday night, before President Trump announced it early Saturday morning.
• The market for whether or not Maduro would be out of power climbed shortly before 10pm ET on Friday, after hovering in the low single digits for weeks, per the Wall Street Journal.
• What appears to be a newly created account appeared to invest $30,000 Friday in Maduro's exit. After Maduro went into custody Saturday morning, that same investor netted $436,759.61.
• Polymarket did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment Saturday morning.State of play: Polymarket was packed with questions related to the Venezuela news Saturday morning.
• The question of 'Maduro in U.S. custody by January 31?' spiked around 4:20am ET — around the time of Trump's announcement — after hovering at a low level for weeks.
• There was a slight bump close to 3am ET, though.
Yes, but: The timing was still a surprise for some. The prediction site Kalshi showed the market for Maduro leaving office before February at around 13 cents.
Between the lines: There've been noteworthy prediction market swings over political battles, sports matches and other moments, so the idea that Maduro's capture was of interest to bettors isn't new.
• Prediction markets really gained nationwide buzz after they shook up the 2024 presidential election, when they showed a stark disparity with political analysts.
What's next: Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) will reportedly introduce a new bill — the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 — to limit federal elected officials and some political figures from engaging in prediction markets.
The bottom line: It's clearly possible to profit off big news events.
• But that might not be the case much longer."
-
#SwampWar #déjà_vu #history #Seminoles #BlackSeminoles
"Guerrilla War in the Swamps
By the end of the engagement, 108 of the 110 soldiers were dead or dying. Private Ransom Clarke and Private Joseph Sprague survived with severe wounds. A third man escaped but died the next day.
Halpatter Tustenuggee helped plan the ambush. 'We had been preparing for this more than a year,' he later said. 'Just as the day was breaking, we moved out of the swamp into the pine-barren. I counted, by direction of Jumper, one hundred and eighty warriors.'
On the same day, Osceola's warriors attacked Fort King. They killed Indian Agent Wiley Thompson and six others. Thompson had been enforcing Seminole removal. News of the massacres spread across the nation. Americans demanded military action.
(. . .)
General Thomas Jesup took command of all U.S. forces in late 1836. He noted the overall racial undertones of the campaign. 'This is a negro, not an Indian war,' he warned. 'If it be not speedily put down, the south will feel the effects of it on their slave population.'
Fewer than 2,000 Seminole warriors faced a U.S. force that grew to 30,000 troops. The numbers meant little. Florida's terrain gave the defenders the advantage. Swamps, sawgrass prairies and dense hammocks made conventional military operations nearly impossible. Summer heat and disease killed more soldiers than combat. Malaria and yellow fever probably caused most of the 1,500 American deaths during the war.
The Seminoles hid their families on remote islands in the Everglades. Warriors struck American troops in unsuspecting ambushes. They disappeared into the terrain where the American soldiers couldn't follow. They used feigned retreats to draw the pursuers into kill zones. They positioned themselves in dense tree islands surrounded by sawgrass and mud, forcing U.S. forces to advance across exposed ground."
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#SwampWar #déjà_vu #history #Seminoles #BlackSeminoles
"Guerrilla War in the Swamps
By the end of the engagement, 108 of the 110 soldiers were dead or dying. Private Ransom Clarke and Private Joseph Sprague survived with severe wounds. A third man escaped but died the next day.
Halpatter Tustenuggee helped plan the ambush. 'We had been preparing for this more than a year,' he later said. 'Just as the day was breaking, we moved out of the swamp into the pine-barren. I counted, by direction of Jumper, one hundred and eighty warriors.'
On the same day, Osceola's warriors attacked Fort King. They killed Indian Agent Wiley Thompson and six others. Thompson had been enforcing Seminole removal. News of the massacres spread across the nation. Americans demanded military action.
(. . .)
General Thomas Jesup took command of all U.S. forces in late 1836. He noted the overall racial undertones of the campaign. 'This is a negro, not an Indian war,' he warned. 'If it be not speedily put down, the south will feel the effects of it on their slave population.'
Fewer than 2,000 Seminole warriors faced a U.S. force that grew to 30,000 troops. The numbers meant little. Florida's terrain gave the defenders the advantage. Swamps, sawgrass prairies and dense hammocks made conventional military operations nearly impossible. Summer heat and disease killed more soldiers than combat. Malaria and yellow fever probably caused most of the 1,500 American deaths during the war.
The Seminoles hid their families on remote islands in the Everglades. Warriors struck American troops in unsuspecting ambushes. They disappeared into the terrain where the American soldiers couldn't follow. They used feigned retreats to draw the pursuers into kill zones. They positioned themselves in dense tree islands surrounded by sawgrass and mud, forcing U.S. forces to advance across exposed ground."
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#SwampWar #déjà_vu #history #Seminoles #BlackSeminoles
"Guerrilla War in the Swamps
By the end of the engagement, 108 of the 110 soldiers were dead or dying. Private Ransom Clarke and Private Joseph Sprague survived with severe wounds. A third man escaped but died the next day.
Halpatter Tustenuggee helped plan the ambush. 'We had been preparing for this more than a year,' he later said. 'Just as the day was breaking, we moved out of the swamp into the pine-barren. I counted, by direction of Jumper, one hundred and eighty warriors.'
On the same day, Osceola's warriors attacked Fort King. They killed Indian Agent Wiley Thompson and six others. Thompson had been enforcing Seminole removal. News of the massacres spread across the nation. Americans demanded military action.
(. . .)
General Thomas Jesup took command of all U.S. forces in late 1836. He noted the overall racial undertones of the campaign. 'This is a negro, not an Indian war,' he warned. 'If it be not speedily put down, the south will feel the effects of it on their slave population.'
Fewer than 2,000 Seminole warriors faced a U.S. force that grew to 30,000 troops. The numbers meant little. Florida's terrain gave the defenders the advantage. Swamps, sawgrass prairies and dense hammocks made conventional military operations nearly impossible. Summer heat and disease killed more soldiers than combat. Malaria and yellow fever probably caused most of the 1,500 American deaths during the war.
The Seminoles hid their families on remote islands in the Everglades. Warriors struck American troops in unsuspecting ambushes. They disappeared into the terrain where the American soldiers couldn't follow. They used feigned retreats to draw the pursuers into kill zones. They positioned themselves in dense tree islands surrounded by sawgrass and mud, forcing U.S. forces to advance across exposed ground."
-
#SwampWar #déjà_vu #history #Seminoles #BlackSeminoles
"Guerrilla War in the Swamps
By the end of the engagement, 108 of the 110 soldiers were dead or dying. Private Ransom Clarke and Private Joseph Sprague survived with severe wounds. A third man escaped but died the next day.
Halpatter Tustenuggee helped plan the ambush. 'We had been preparing for this more than a year,' he later said. 'Just as the day was breaking, we moved out of the swamp into the pine-barren. I counted, by direction of Jumper, one hundred and eighty warriors.'
On the same day, Osceola's warriors attacked Fort King. They killed Indian Agent Wiley Thompson and six others. Thompson had been enforcing Seminole removal. News of the massacres spread across the nation. Americans demanded military action.
(. . .)
General Thomas Jesup took command of all U.S. forces in late 1836. He noted the overall racial undertones of the campaign. 'This is a negro, not an Indian war,' he warned. 'If it be not speedily put down, the south will feel the effects of it on their slave population.'
Fewer than 2,000 Seminole warriors faced a U.S. force that grew to 30,000 troops. The numbers meant little. Florida's terrain gave the defenders the advantage. Swamps, sawgrass prairies and dense hammocks made conventional military operations nearly impossible. Summer heat and disease killed more soldiers than combat. Malaria and yellow fever probably caused most of the 1,500 American deaths during the war.
The Seminoles hid their families on remote islands in the Everglades. Warriors struck American troops in unsuspecting ambushes. They disappeared into the terrain where the American soldiers couldn't follow. They used feigned retreats to draw the pursuers into kill zones. They positioned themselves in dense tree islands surrounded by sawgrass and mud, forcing U.S. forces to advance across exposed ground."
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#Panama #déjà_vu #documentaries #history
"George Bush and Manuel Noriega in *The Panama Deception*x (1992)
A film about the true reasons for the 1989 US invasion of Panama and big media complicity in these activities."
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Good morning. 🦋🦋🦋
17 November 2025
I know — I posted an image of a Monarch butterfly yesterday, and here’s another. I was actually working on a small field of wildflowers this morning, but when I saved the finished image, it vanished. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I took that as a sign to move on. Divine intervention is as good an excuse as any — though more likely, it’s just user error. Or as we used to say in the Army: user headspace and timing.
If you’ve never served, that phrase might sound cryptic. Headspace and timing refers to the precise adjustments on the M2 .50 caliber machinegun — the kind that ensure it fires properly. If the settings are off, it won’t work. So when we say user headspace and timing, we’re usually pointing to a human misfire — a moment when the operator’s settings are just a little off. I think you get the drift.
Now, how did I swing from wildflowers and butterflies to machineguns? I can almost visualize it — an abrupt disturbance in a quiet field. A Monarch in flight, interrupted by the ghost of Ma Deuce. I sense a disturbance in the force. It needed saying.
Anyway, I’ve got thousands of images in the archive. If that wildflower shot is buried somewhere in the digital thicket, I’ll just have to wait until I stumble across it again.
I just finished The Life of Chuck, a novella by Stephen King. While reading it, I had the odd sensation I’d read it before. I did watch the movie with the same title, so maybe that’s it — but the words felt familiar. I don’t recall reading the book, yet the feeling lingered. A weird little déjà vu moment. Could the movie have mirrored the book so closely that it felt like reading? Maybe I need to rewatch the film to solve the mystery.
“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” — Will Rogers
“Time is a figure eight, at its center the city of Déjà Vu.” — Robert Breault
#photo #photography #photographer #wildlife #nature #morning #butterfly #Deja_vu #error
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"Russia's bid to create an army of 'Humanzee' human-ape hybrid 'super soldiers': Scientist tried to recruit African women to be impregnated by chimpanzees as part of crazed bid to raise deadly chimeras
It was an age of exploration. In the early 20th century, the great minds of the world transformed the lives of millions with advances in emerging new fields.
Science fiction dreamed up brave new worlds and the utopian forms they could take, and ambitious powers with newfound wealth offered the means to realise them.
At the Pasteur Institute in Paris, one rising scientist saw the opportunity to push the frontiers of modern science by taking mankind itself to the next evolutionary level. Ilya Ivanov, having made a name for himself breeding horses, sought to usher in a new age by breeding human beings with other primates.
Russia's bid to create an army of 'Humanzee' human-ape hybrid 'super soldiers': Scientist tried to recruit African women to be impregnated by chimpanzees as part of crazed bid to raise deadly chimeras
Soviet scientist travelled world in hopes of creating human-ape hybrids
It was an age of exploration. In the early 20th century, the great minds of the world transformed the lives of millions with advances in emerging new fields.
Science fiction dreamed up brave new worlds and the utopian forms they could take, and ambitious powers with newfound wealth offered the means to realise them.
At the Pasteur Institute in Paris, one rising scientist saw the opportunity to push the frontiers of modern science by taking mankind itself to the next evolutionary level. Ilya Ivanov, having made a name for himself breeding horses, sought to usher in a new age by breeding human beings with other primates.
As his native Russia embraced revolution and promised a modern, atheistic vision for the future, Ivanov found financial backing for his twisted theories and was sent around the world to conduct horrifying experiments on local populations, offering the fledgling USSR the chance to dictate the path of human evolution.
At the height of unbridled scientific fervour, Ivanov's untamed ambition to create a new hybrid race saw some of the most flagrant breaches of modern ethics, funded and enabled by blinkered ideological ambition."
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If they mean to have a war:
"If they mean to have a war, let it begin here” -- Captain John Parker, at Lexington 1775 (attributed)
"Let the troops pass by, and don’t molest them, without they begin first." -- what he probably said, or something like it.
"Capt. Parker ordered his men to stand their ground and not to molest the regulars, unless they meddled with us." -- eye witness Ebenezer Munroe
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#TrumpRegime #NationalGuard #Democrats #fascists #provocations #history #déjà_vu
"While Trump frantically multiplies measures, initiatives, and faits accomplis that are paving the way for the establishment of a truly dictatorial regime in the United States, the leaders of the Democratic Party, foreign ministries around the world, followed by the international media, as well as the overwhelming majority of 'political scientists' and other think tank experts, persist in seeing nothing of the sort. Or rather, all these fine people persist in seeing only 'incomprehensible' acts, ‘whims’ or 'mood swings' on the part of this 'unfathomable' American president.
For example, when Trump deploys the National Guard or even the army in large cities such as Los Angeles, Washington DC, or Chicago, which are governed by Democrats, the Democratic Party establishment does not see the president’s attempt to test the reactions of his opponents, nor to accustom the population to the militarization of public life and the possible imposition of martial law. No, the Democratic leadership, followed by sympathetic media outlets, led by the New York Times, does not see any of this, but rather a… 'diversion' by Trump to prevent public attention from focusing on the Epstein scandal, which could tarnish his image !
Thus, the non-existent or at best lukewarm reactions of the Democratic Party leadership, the Democratic mayors of these cities, and the media close to them should come as no surprise. By refusing to call for a general mobilization of the populations concerned to counter Trump’s anti-democratic provocations in the streets and by ostensibly maintaining the illusion that salvation can only come from…judges, they can only encourage Trump to harden and expand his fascist offensive, which openly flouts all laws and constitutions,(1) even in an area as important and sensitive as the health of his fellow citizens. And it is no coincidence that a legendary doctor in the United States, such as the director of the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Demetre Daskalakis, has resigned from his post, opportunely recalling that his Cretan grandfather—whose name he bears—died fighting the fascists and denouncing the eugenicist logic of Trump’s policies!
So how can we not remember another fascist provocation, this time also intended to test the reactions of opponents, 92 years ago? This was, of course, the parade of the Nazi SA and SS in front of the enormous headquarters of the German Communist Party in Berlin (called Karl Liebknecht Haus) on January 22, 1933. A parade that provoked no reaction whatsoever from the communists, who merely requested—in vain—the intervention of the police, even though this had been considered 'unthinkable' and 'impossible' the day before by both the KPD leadership and the Nazi party.
Commenting on this event in his diary, Goebbels did not hide his surprise at the 'paralysis' of the KPD, but also his overwhelming enthusiasm, concluding that no one was going to react against the Nazis’ rise to power. This is exactly what happened a week later when Hitler became chancellor and the Nazis came to power without the slightest street demonstration by either the Social Democratic SPD or the Communist KPD! As for the Karl Liebknecht Haus, the Nazis occupied it a month later to use as their own headquarters…
In short, history repeats itself and, unfortunately, not always as farce. For example, when the same Democratic establishment, but also its co-thinkers around the world, declare day after day that Trump’s future will be decided in the midterm elections in a year’s time and that, as there is a strong chance that Trump will pay dearly for his anti-democratic 'follies,' all the Democrats can do is to do everything they can to win these elections. Their reasoning would be consistent, if it weren’t for one major snag: who can guarantee that there will be midterm elections? Or even any elections at all in Donald Trump’s United States? Or at the very least, who can guarantee that these elections will not be rigged, as suggested, for example, by the systematic gerrymandering of electoral districts or the mass exclusion of 'undesirable' voters from the electoral rolls, which Republican governors are already happily indulging in?
The 'naivety' of the Democratic Party leaders, or rather their total misunderstanding of the (mortal) dictatorial and fascist danger represented by Trump and his acolytes, leads them not only to believe in myths such as the unshakeable 'solidity of American democracy,' but also to entertain illusions about their ability to ultimately tame Trump, who is, after all, flesh of their capitalist flesh. But all this imperceptibly brings to mind a historical precedent that cost humanity dearly: that of the right-wing and far-right bourgeois political establishment of the Weimar Republic, which, 'naively' believing it could easily tame Hitler and his Nazis, ultimately only brought him to power!"
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The cold blooded murder of an innocent American by the Obama regime:
"Asked about the strike that killed him, a senior adviser to the president's campaign suggests he should've 'had a more responsible father.'
Cornered by reporters with video cameras, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to President Obama's reelection campaign, attempted to defend the kill list that the Obama Administration uses to determine whose body should next be blown apart. American drone strikes have resulted in hundreds of dead innocents in the last four years, even as the program has killed a number of high-level al Qaeda terrorists. There are two remarkable things about the ensuing exchange, which eventually turns into a discussion about a dead 16-year-old kid:
First, it's vital for the uninitiated to understand how Team Obama misleads when it talks about its drone program. Asked how their kill list can be justified, Gibbs replies that 'When there are people who are trying to harm us, and have pledged to bring terror to these shores, we've taken that fight to them.' Since the kill list itself is secret, there's no way to offer a specific counterexample. But we do know that U.S. drones are targeting people who've never pledged to carry out attacks in the United States. Take Pakistan, where the CIA kills some people without even knowing their identities. 'As Obama nears the end of his term, officials said the kill list in Pakistan has slipped to fewer than 10 al-Qaeda targets, down from as many as two dozen,' the Washington Post reports. 'The agency now aims many of its Predator strikes at the Haqqani network, which has been blamed for attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.' The vast majority would never make their way to New York or Washington, D.C., and the Obama Administration would never agree to rules that permitted only the killing of threats to 'the homeland.'
The second notable statement concerns the killing of 16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
Tom Junod gives the back story:He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan. Of course, both Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were, at the very least, traitors to their country -- they had both gone to Yemen and taken up with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Awlaki had proven himself an expert inciter of those with murderous designs against America and Americans: the rare man of words who could be said to have a body count. When he was killed, on September 30, 2011, President Obama made a speech about it; a few months later, when the Obama administration's public-relations campaign about its embrace of what has come to be called 'targeted killing' reached its climax in a front-page story in the New York Times that presented the President of the United States as the last word in deciding who lives and who dies, he was quoted as saying that the decision to put Anwar al-Awlaki on the kill list -- and then to kill him -- was 'an easy one.' But Abdulrahman al-Awlaki wasn't on an American kill list.
Nor was he a member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninusla. Nor was he 'an inspiration,' as his father styled himself, for those determined to draw American blood; nor had he gone 'operational,' as American authorities said his father had, in drawing up plots against Americans and American interests. He was a boy who hadn't seen his father in two years, since his father had gone into hiding. He was a boy who knew his father was on an American kill list and who snuck out of his family's home in the early morning hours of September 4, 2011, to try to find him. He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.
How does Team Obama justify killing him?"
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*The Family*, by Jeff Sharlet
They insist they are just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the most influential religious organization in Washington. They say they are not Christians, but simply believers.
Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is 'Jesus plus nothing.' Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith—part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition—has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world. "
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#ZapruderFilm #déjà_vu #ConspiracyTheories
"On March 6, 1975, American television audiences witnessed a pivotal moment that reshaped public perception of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. For the first time, the Zapruder film—captured by Dallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder on November 22, 1963—was broadcast in motion on national television. The footage aired on Good Night America, a late-night news program on ABC, hosted by Geraldo Rivera. Joining Rivera for the segment were assassination researcher Robert J. Groden and comedian-turned-political-activist Dick Gregory. The impact of this broadcast was profound, reigniting widespread skepticism about the official narrative of Kennedy’s murder and intensifying calls for further investigation.
Since the day of the assassination, the Zapruder film had been shrouded in controversy. Shortly after capturing the footage, Zapruder sold the original 8mm reel to Life magazine for $150,000, giving the publication exclusive rights. While Life released selected still frames, it withheld the full motion footage from the public, fueling speculation and distrust. Those who had viewed bootleg copies or examined the published frames suspected that the film contained evidence contradicting the Warren Commission’s 1964 conclusion that Kennedy was shot solely from behind by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. In particular, Frame 313—depicting the fatal headshot—suggested an impact that violently propelled Kennedy backward, an observation inconsistent with a shot fired from the Texas School Book Depository behind him."